- Denmark has reinstated the disputed bill for sexual abuse of children (CSAM) on the first day of its EU Presidency
- The proposal for the so -called chat check could be adopted already on October 14, 2025
- The proposal has failed to attract the necessary majority since May 2022
Denmark started its EU Presidency on July 1, 2025, and among its first actions, legislators quickly reintroduced the controversial sexual abuse of children (CSAM) to the top of the agenda.
After being considered by critics as chat control, the bill aims to introduce new obligations for all message services operating in Europe to scan users’ chat, even if encrypted.
However, the proposal has not failed to attract the necessary majority since May 2022, when Poland’s Presidency was the last to give up such a plan.
Denmark is a strong supporter of chat control. Now the new rules could be adopted already on October 14, 2025, if the Danish Presidency manages to find an intermediate plot among the members of the countries.
Chat control is back – what we know so far
The Danish parliament has not yet revealed the content of the new compromises. At the time of writing, we know that another meeting is scheduled for later this week (July 11), where legislators are expected to consider the bill on October 14 (see page 31 of the agenda).
We also know that among the goals of the Danish EU Presidency, there is an obligation to “focus on strengthening the ability to make use of digital development for law enforcement when fighting for serious crime while addressing abuse of new technologies for criminals or harmful purposes,” reads Denmark’s program.
So-called chat control aims to stop the spread of CSAM content online by scanning all communication, especially encrypted. Over the years, however, the proposal has seen some phrases as personal advocates, technologists and even politicians raised concerns.
Experts worry that these new obligations will undermine encryption protection. Encryption is a technology that WhatsApp, Signal, ProtonMail and even the best VPN apps use to crawl users’ messages into an unreal form, prevent unauthorized access and guarantee that chats remain private.
According to its first version, all message software providers would be required to perform arbitrary scanning of private messages to look for CSAM-so-called ‘client page scan’. The proposal was met with a strong setback, and the European Human Right’s court ended up banning all legal efforts to weaken the encryption of safe communication in Europe.
In June 2024, Belgium then suggested a new text to target only shared photos, videos and URLs under users’ permission. This version did not satisfy the industry or voted EU members because of its compulsory nature. According to the Belgian text, users must give consent to the shared material that is scanned before being encrypted to continue using the functionality.
🇬🇧🚨 Under Danish management, #chatcontrol must be adopted already on October 14! (p. 31) The decisive factor is Germany: neither conservatives nor socialists have yet declared digital privacy for correspondence and secure encryption to be a red line.July 1, 2025
Frice until February 2025, Poland tried to find a better compromise by making the scan of encrypted chat’s volunteers instead of mandatory and classified as “prevention.” While experts found this version a “major progress” they still complained to the risk of mass surveillance, and ultimately failed to attract the necessary majority.
We could then expect the Danish text to try to find a compromise that appeals to most of the country’s members.
According to the former MEP for the German Pirate Party, Patrick Breyer, Denmark is crucial to manage to convince Germany of its proposed text. The new government has not yet decided at the time of writing.
What is certain, however, is that the controversial CSAM scanning bill is far from the only proposal that threatens encryption in Europe.
In the latest of these efforts, on June 24, 2025, the EU Commission published the first step in its Protecteu strategy, which seemed to enable law enforcement bodies to decrypt your private data by 2030.
